Blunt Colleagues Undermining His Excuses and His Leadership

This isn't exactly new information, but a Roll Call article posted late Monday afternoon confirms two things about Roy Blunt's statements and leadership on health care reform:

1. Blunt's new excuse -- that he can't present a health care plan because Democrats won't let him -- is silly.
2. A significant number of his House GOP colleagues are not content with his leadership on health care matters, and are refusing to wait for him.

Blunt's attempt to blame the Democrats for why no one knows the details of his health care reform plan is just ridiculous.  Blunt has been promising a plan for months, and could release a detailed plan and introduce legislation at any point.  He and Minority Leader John Boehner even called a press conference in June to announce their "plan," which turned out to just be a very short outline with very few numbers. Blunt only began blaming others for his failure to produce a plan to respond to criticism that he'd chosen not to produce a plan because he thought it could be politically unhelpful.

Annoyed Congressional Democrats have also pointed out that Republicans could have offered their alternative legislation in "in either the Ways and Means Committee or the Education and Labor Committee, which held markups last week," according to Roll Call.

Boehner is now promising that Republicans may release their legislation at some future date, but only after they know more details about the Democratic plan (HR 3200).  Boehner is also suggesting that there are similar levels of uncertainty about both plans, but that's just absurd.

As we've known for months, a large number of conservatives and House Republicans are unhappy with Blunt's leadership.  And this week, a group of legislators from Rep. Tom Price's (GA-6) "Republican Study Committee" plan to release their bill on Thursday.

But not all Republicans are waiting for Democrats to make the first move. The conservative Republican Study Committee is expected to release a bill on Thursday emphasizing tax incentives and pooling mechanisms to achieve universal coverage.

How is that other groups of House Republicans feel empowered to introduce bills, but Roy Blunt says he can't? 

Finally, it's more than a little ironic to see conservative advocacy groups pushing a "Have you read the health care bill?" campaign when Blunt et al. refuse to release the details of the amendments they want credit for creating.

On Friday, the public got a glimpse of a House Republican health care reform bill at a news conference, but Members did not distribute copies of their legislative blueprint to the press.

Blunt wants credit for having boxes of amendments, but doesn't want people to know what's in them. Why?

For more Fired Up! coverage of Blunt's leadership on health care reform:

• GOP "very concerned" about the "void" left by Blunt's health care task force
• Blunt Assessment: "They look into their own camp — and get nervous"
• GOP still underwhelmed with Roy Blunt's leadership on health care
• Blunt acknowledges lack of substance in his own health care talking points
• Blunt: Health care hasn't been a priority for House leadership
• Blunt still promising a "Republican Plan" for health care
• Irony Alert: Blunt demands health care reform details from Obama
• Blunt now looking to unveil health care plan "in the coming weeks"
• Still waiting for an affordable health care alternative from Blunt & Co.
• Blunt concerned about grassroots involvement in health care debate
• World moves on without Blunt

Image credit: Politico